Child self protection and the order of Heian/Pinan

Whilst re-reading the ebook "The application of the Pinan/Heian katas" I have had the following thought and would like others opinions.

In much of the research and thinking displayed here, it is agreed that the order of the first two Kata were reversed at around the same time they were introduced to the school syllabus. Probably, and in support of my point, after they had been in school for a while.

Here is my thought. A childs experiences of physicality are different from an adults and the re-ordering of the kata reflect this.

Many people are confused into thinking that physically and mentally children are simply short adults. Doctors giving medical dosages, police officers making arrests, coaches insisting on flexibility for kids who can tie themselves in knots. It happens all the time. In the case of this forum/website the confusion might take the shape of thinking that children experiencing the need for self protection is simply a weaker/slower version of adult confrontation.

Firstly most childrens No1 concern is not mugging, rape, murder or attacks by drunks etc it is bullying; mental and physical. As such giving a child "peace of mind" requires dealing first and foremost with this issue. Bullies do not seek to injure, this will get them into trouble, they seek to intimidate. Grabbing, squeezing, head-locking, pushing etc are their weapons. The child being bullied needs to be lulled into a false sense of security, or worse is already so intimidated that defence is not an option, and so the whole pre 'fight' exchange is missing. The result is that a child using self protection needs to deal with the 'establishing of grips' FIRST. Hence once Itosu and Funakoshi where dealing with children they reversed the order of the first two kata.

Secondly the founders of the various school were not faultless supermen, but they did understand the psychology of violence. If, as I think we all agree, these men were able to dissect the physical and mental aspects of violence for adults, then is it not equally acceptable that they soon recognised that childrens experiences are different from adults.

I think this makes sense for the vast majority of childrens fears and 'fights'. Yes I know children are capable of appalling acts of violence, but these are not the every day. As Iain has pointed out on many occasions Karate was not constructed as a battlefield weapon, it is for the mundane. For most children most of the time it is about getting peace of mind by keeping the bullies away.

What do you think.

Mark

p.s most of my thoughts are based around the writing on page 4 and 5 of the introduction, and my experience working in schools.

The order of the Pinan/Heian was changed by Funakoshi somewhere in the 1930 (not sure of the order in his 1920 books since I don't have them here at work right now). So this new order is almost exclusive for Shotokan I think. In older/other Ryuha the original Itosu order is taught (or at least the original enumeration stayed).

Pinan does'nt mean anything along the lines of "peaceful mind".

When the Pinan-Gata series is especially suited for children, why were they taught to adults? As you pointed out, adults face other types of violence opposite to the children on children type of violence.

As stated my theory is based on re-reading Iains book, I am not a student of the subject nor a speaker/reader of japanese. I am very aware of the danger of being a one book 'expert' Which is why I am looking for crticism from people such as yourself.

I am quite willing to accept that the Funakoshi did not change the order of the kata for any other reasons than technical ones, that is after all what we have been taught for years. However I learnt my kata at a time when everyone 'knew' they were about defending against multiple attackers. In the light of work by many people who post here and elsewhere we are re-considering / have thrown out this idea. I am attempting in my own way to enter into this spirit of thinking.

My interpretation of Pinan comes as shown below, could you clear it up for me if it means something else.

Could you please expand on your thought on applicability to children and adults.

My thinking on this is that striking is striking, grappling is grappling adult or child, the validity of techniques is not dictated by the age of the practitioner. Hence the physical instruction would remain the same. However the mental aspects of confrontation are very different for children and as such the order in which techniques become relevant changes, so change the order of the kata.

Funakoshi was a teacher working with children, the other style creators were not. He changed the order, they did not. I do not know how long Funakoshi worked as a teacher and so this point may be irrelevant.

That 10,20 or 30 years go by before someone in education realises they have been missing the point, was probably as true then as it is today.

That the Pinan kata are bitesize versions of 'grown up' kata seems to imply that they are perfect for instruction of beginners of any age, not that they are applicaple only to child v child situations. (I think?)

Finally even if I am wrong about Funakoshi's motivation for changing them do you think my logic is flawed for changing them today when teaching children self defence?

I spent a lot of time last year working on the Heian series from the Shotokan perspective, then started researching and looking at the best examples I could get of Itosu's Pinans. I was all gung ho to jump on the original order bus, I really was. But after working on them from the stand point of an adolescent (my daughter and son were my ginny pigs) I started to agree with Funakoshi. I know, that could be considered heresy, but I now have the opinion that since Itosu created the Pinans for teaching within a larger public school environment, and he created Pinan Shodan first, he learned something that first year. With nothing but logic and my own mind for evidence, I believe he came to the conclusion that Pinan Shodan didn't represent the most efficient first kata for the students he was trying to teach. His next kata was closer to a "first" kata.

I now agree with Funakoshi, Pinan Nidan is a better first kata for new students, when teaching in a large environment, without the classic Okinawan form of finding a teacher, trust, good family, age, etc. So I understand why he rearranged the order.

That's not to say that you can't teach good applications from Pinan Shodan, but I personally (IMO) find that the best applications for Pinan Shodan are more ballistic in nature. It's a more combative oriented kata. I find that the best applications for Pinan Nidan are more release and combatives avoidance in nature.

Take the opening posture of Shodan, Iain teaches it primarily as a combatives application. Clearing obstructive limbs, working ballistically to the opponents head. This is I think the best application tree for those techniques. Although you can teach that posture as a release from mulitple arm and wrist grabs, it will work, I find it not as efficiecent defensively. You will get out of your opponents grasp, but you will stay in a combative posture and range. A fighting nature. I find that the opening move of Pinan Nidan is a better reponse to being grabbed, from a non-combative posture. You still control the situation, but you are in a more "defensive" posture and at better range and angle. One that works better IMO for the school yard or for someone who is trying to de-escalate the situation.

So, although lately in my personal karate I don't work on the Pinans, I can see a valid syllabus, espescially in a larger class environment with young men and women, Nidan should be first and then Shodan can be taught next. You give them a good self defense start for the primary things they (and all of us adults to) can expect. Someone grabbing them and trying to control them. Wether to take them or hit them. They have a good basis for dealing with what even the Brittish government says is likely...someone grabbing you, then following that up with something else.

Love the try it, refelct on it, change it .. nature of the events as told. Couple of questions,

You imply a couple of times that delivering instruction in "large class" environments has influenced your opinion. Does that meant that you find it easier to deliver the 'simpler' moves of Nidan to large numbers or that large numbers of students have made it clear that they prefer to learn Nidan first? If the later then why?

Also you mention that your own children where experimented on. What was the feedback from them? Did they show more interest in Nidan applications or suggest they thought them more relevant or some other point?

You also raise a good point about abduction, although I believe this is a bigger fear for parents than it is for children themselves. But as you say being grabbed is grabbed, getting out of it is the main thing.

One thing to consider, is not Funakoshi Sensei in this so much, go back to Itosu Sensei who created the modern Pinan kata set.

Not only did he teach this kata set in the middle schools (teenagers) but he also taught his private, serious students after school. People like Chibanna Sensei, who formed Kobayashi Shorin Ryu (theres your best reference to Itosu Sensei Pinan kata IMO).

Personally I feel the Pinan (Shodan and Nidan) are a modern form of a Chinese Long Fist system, which came to Okinawa as kata/s Chang'an (a number of translations but one is 'constant peace') or were developed from them (mentioned in direct relation to one of the Pinan katas by Motobu Sensei, he also quotes Itosu Sensei as stating why the name change for the kata to Pinan, the students preffered it, from My Karate etc).

Chang'an was an important city in the Tang Dynasty, the old reading of KarateTe is Tang Hand - a direct reference IMO.

I was told by a very well read, experienced Okinawan martial artist who mad eit his busienss to find stuff out that Pinan translates as 'perpetual peace'.

In our Ryu we do not practice the Pinan Sandan, Yondan and Godan historically and actually view the Pinan Shodan and Nidan kata as Kihon (not serious kata in terms of Bunkai/Oyo) so granted im not best placed to speak with any authority on this subject but felt the historcialy ref may be of interest.

Could you please expand on your thought on applicability to children and adults.

I wouldn't teach any applications to children. And I am pretty sure neither did Itosu. He wanted to introduce Karate to the schools so that children would get a physical education. In 1890 the japanese emperor passed an edict on physical education. So every child in school had to be physical educated. This physical education was formed after western standards. (Everything was formed after western standards British Navy, Prussian Army, German Medicine and so on). At first the children did military style gymnastics but after time martial arts was used for that. Kano formed Judo on this behalf and Itosu formed "modern" Karate by changing the classical Karate. So he and three of his students (Yabu, Hanashiro, Kudeken) who had experienced western methods in the military formulated methods to teach Karate to the masses. And thats it for the children.

His adult students got the full package. And in my eyes the Pinan/Heian-Gata series is a best of Shorin Ryu. So Itosu took the methods he found to be excellent out of all the Kata he knew and compiled them into the 5 step series we all know today.

Funakoshi taught as a school teacher until his early 50s. He retired shortly before he emerged to the japanese main lands. He wanted to spread Karate and so he took Itosus new way of teaching the masses and taught that on the main land to all the students in all the clubs he instructed in. So no applications here either. He only taught his close students in the private sessions at the Shotokan the real deal. Because he taught mostly only the forms he figured that it is technicaly better to reverse the order of the first two Pinan/Heian-Gata.

thanks for that link article, it is an excellent clarification of the meaning of Pinan. i.e. Safe from Harm. Makes me wonder how people would think about karate if they were to shout "Safe from Harm one/two/three etc" in English before their Kata Oh how the mystery of the unknown holds a powerful allure.

I think you have made it clear that the Funakoshi, itosu etc probably did not do as i suggested, I am still willing to argue the point, but want to move onto what I consider the meat of the post.

As I pointed out in my first post, I believe that children have valid and real concerns about 'violence' that are different from an adults.

My over-riding motivation for starting this post was to examine this point. The difference between child and adult self protection, and the implications for teaching young people real and practical self defence. I am yet to get round to the 'money & MA' podcast, but i would be surprised if childrens' classes don't crop up somewhere in there. It seems to me that many clubs have youth sections solely for revenue generation. £70 per term, £20 per grading per term, four terms per year. bingo. These classes are sold on a raft of benefits from self confidence to combating obesity, but self defence is always in there somewhere.

It is clear that not every club and teacher thinks the way that many of us here do. They continue to teach 'traditional karate' and whilst sport karate, meditation etc all have their place I think we all agree that they do not address the self protection issue adequately. And to pretend they do is to be either wilfully or mistakenly dishonest. The work that Iain and others have done to move our thinking forward is nothing short of a revolution.

I am suggesting that we need a similar 'revolution' in thought when teaching self defence to kids. If that means re-ordering kata to meet their requirements. Or developing different strike zone priorities to assess discrepancies in size. To recognise that legally they are allowed first strike privileges but that their school will exclude them for exercising that right. That the gangs adults fear offer kids a form of self protection, then so be it.

What I am really trying to get at is giving kids today the tools to navigate their world 'safe from harm' and in doing so recognising that they inhabit a world with similar but different rules, triggers, consequences and benefits than adults do. As we seem to find ourselves somewhere near the research wing of the martial arts world perhaps it is our responsibility to thrash this topic out.

Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree. Maybe other people out there have already done the heavy thinking on this topic, or maybe the original masters have got some surprises for us when we ask their kata these questions.

the old masters were of the opinion that the ideal age for taking up Karate is arround the age of 11/12/13 something like that. I think there is a reason for this :o).

I don't teach children, but I can say one thing for sure. I wouldn't teach them any self defence. I would educate them in self protection related stuff like being aware of what dangers there are out there for children, asking for help, dealing with mobbing and so on. But nothing physical in that manner at least not against adults.

Are you talking children on children violence or adult on children violence? What age are the children? Because for adult on children violence I can hardly imagine a child that could handle that type of violence properly.

Not too sure if anyone has mentioned it being one Kata: Channan Kata broken down into 5 parts, is one story I've read too.

My view on the Pinan/Heian Series of Kata is they give the KarateKa exactly What One puts into them. They have to be studied as one complete block not split up into I'll do that one and that one but not them. as it would be the same as cutting out the middle of say Gojushiho or Kushanku etc.

I don't practice the Kata, but I did during my Wado Days. For me its either Pinan or Kushanku Kata not both. Although I don't practice either now.

Thank you all for some excellent reading and providing various sources of different information on the same Kata. Credibility isn't required here as the Heian/Pinan Series is the most practice Kata in the World.

In Kyokushin they practice Ura versions on the Pinan Kata, not too sure if this is "exclusive" to this style or other styles practice Ura too

@ Black Tiger. I agree. Though generally the posts on the forum are all grown up. Good point re the origins of P/H kata and I think that is the whole question, Why deconstruct the kata for kids / beginners? Technical reasons, attention span, or maybe (my point) they allow the teacher to deliver the correct tool for the job at hand.

@ Holger, ok take a deep breath we're going in...

In terms of child self protection I am talking about anything THEY feel they might need protecting from. The four articles by Jamie Clubb on teaching children self protection (see articles section) are excellent with a great example re your point on adult v child.

As far back as 2005 the Youth Sports Trust developed the Long Term Athletic Development strategy (LTAD). One of the key aims of this policy was to encourage coaches of young people to recognise the physical, psychological and social differences between children and adults. Professional researchers into child sporting development, like Dave Morely took this policy and developed the concept of specialist youth coaches. But In MA clubs the youth 'team' coach is usually the same person as the adult coach. And you do not want to get me started on the whole brown belt takes the beginners thing!

I am assuming that most of the people on this site are into the practicality of their training and teaching. That they spend time making sure that what they teach and learn is relevant. e.g. Iains quote re the crime survey that shows most injuries occur on the left of the face indicating right handed assailants. Excellent. Evidence based work that underlines the predominance of dealing with right handed attackers in the Kata.

However when teaching the children's classes do we think to ourselves "right whats in the paper this week about child violence" and then structure our lessons around that, watering down some of the work we do with adults. Or do we as the LTAD would have us do, actually look at the real lives of children.

The NSPCC says that on average 52 children are killed by another person each year. Two thirds of these children are under 5. That leaves less than 17 teenage deaths by others. They do not say how many are by other children, but we can assume it is not all of them. At the same time the biggest survey ever done on bullying (Do something org) showed that 52% of kids have personally witnessed bullying and that over two thirds of them believe that Adult intervention is infrequent and ineffective.

My question has become, if a club teaches kids classes, do they spend a real percentage of the lessons teaching them how to deal with their real problems or do they teach them how to deal with what the newspapers say are the problems?

Do 52% of our adult classes see violence on a regular basis? Well our kids do and we could be guilty of inoculating them against malaria whilst they are suffering from a flu.

just read that through, apologies for the rant. I know you don't teach kids but as you can tell I want to thrash this out and other people who have read this thread and DO teach kids classes haven't picked it up. Oh well just you and me then...

In short if a kid told me they need to stop people grabbing them, then it would be Funakoshi order of kata. If they need to deal with the whole pre fight stuff then Itosu. Change it to fit the needs of the user, don't insist on there being THE way to do it. Isn't that how we got into the whole multiple attacker interpretation in the first place?

An interesting thread. I've really enjoyed reading the different ideas and information so far.

As many of you know from my other posts, my DART system's physical syllabus is orientated according to the most common HAOV rather than the order of Kata and has been for about 7 years now. I teach principles of the system and a few isolated drills across the country to hundreds of people a year, but locally I only run two clubs: an adult club and one based in a secondary school, of which the secondary school has always been the larger club. At the school for most of the time I'd run the club the students had been 15-18, but about 3 years ago I got an influx of 11 year olds and have had that age group join each year since. Those of you that have trained with me will know that what I teach does not look pretty to an untrained observer - it is hands on close quarter stuff.

A year ago in class I was going through the rationale behind a particular drill (everything is done for a reason and we always explain what we are doing) when one of the eleven year olds piped up that people 'didn't attack like that'. After a bit of cross examination I established that there was nothing wrong with the drill per se, although at that particular age, being all arms and legs they found it awkward, but their experiences of physical violence was quite different to that of the older teens and adults. The drills we focused on later in our syllabus were of more interest to the juniors. I should stress here that my syllabus is not designed to be more technically difficult as you go along, so in a class it is possible for a white shirt to be doing a brown shirt's drill as a superficial interest keeping change of activity while working and improving a skill fundamental to their grading syllabus, as a result they see and try later bits of the syllabus all the time. The 11 yr olds were not interested in the haymakers, push-punches, headbutts etc that concerned the older students, they were more interested in: (and had seen and experienced in the playground and changing rooms) attempted ballsack grabs (yes you heard that right), headlocks, grabs from behind, tackles, and scuffling on the ground. They were interested in what they could do against an older person holding or threatening them, but expected to be pushed or slapped for non compliance or have something wrestled by strength rather than being beaten in a way that happened to older teens or adults. Punches to the head did happen, but they were so rare they were not such a concern as more common peer attacks.

Rather than ignore this I sat down and reconfigured a junior syllabus (11-13 yr olds) to run parallel with the adult syllabus for the first five grades of my system with drills taught in a different order. I'm only 6 months into the switch.

I posted on here a video a few months back of two of my 12 yr old students, 1.5 years into training, who decided they wanted to take part in one of my adult Sim Days. I've added it in again here as it does highlight the physical and mental differences between children and adults. The acclimatisation section at the start, with the impromptu grappling, is particularly telling. They had a great time, but it reinforced the differences between adult and child when it comes to unarmed physical violence.

With regard to the Pinan / Heian - they are what you make of them. In my current bunkai project I've switched from the 38 drills shown in my Heian Flow System book, to about 68 drills - some static, some dynamic, with 50% of the HFS stuff taken out. From my perspective the stuff most relevant to the boys I work with is in the Sandan, Yondan and Godan drills I've put together (which are more clinch and hold based), with Shodan and Nidan in the Shotokan order as a way of making students safe to train at speed with ballistic responses and introducing kicks and clinches in more detail in HN/PS after HS/PN. It is important to weigh up not only the student needs outside the dojo, but training safety needs inside the dojo - especially once you are dealing with more than one pair of students! I find the way I have split my approaches interesting in the light of the traditions in Shoshinkan's ryu, since their tradition is that Matsumura was responsible for the first two (which I use more as punching defences, reaction and parrying development, preemptive striking at different ranges etc) and Itosu responsible for the last three (which I use more as grappling and clinch exercises and flow between percussive and grappling responses).

Where I started and where you got me to by making me think are two different places.

@ John

Thank you very much for this post. There is so much in it that stands out as great practice. And is obvious by reading it. But there are a few things you imply that I would like to pick up on as well.

1. You have a limited no of students and you dedicate your time and effort to meeting THEIR needs not forcing them into your syllabus.

2. You have fostered an environment where an 11 year old feels s/he can pipe up and 'challenge' the expert.

3. You must have instigated a series of conversations with the students that encouraged you to re-design your syllabus. Not simply done all that work on the basis of one comment.

4. Your syllabus develops in line with their concerns as they get older. Not more technical, just different.

I would also be interested to know if you had any conversations with staff at the school (I do not know if you are one) about why you had an influx of younger students. Or did you feedback to a member of staff that this had happened and allowed them to find out why suddenly self defence had become an issue for the youngest kids?

I am not surprised at all by your list of kids concerns. Having worked for nearly 20 years as a PE teacher in some lively inner city schools. I can tell you that 99% of student 'fights' are not as the papers say but more like this;

'did you see Ronaldo's goal'

'Ronaldo is shit.'

'your mum is shit' (push)

Headlock with an option of punching to the face.

Horseplay that gets out of hand? doesn't matter, the point is that, as you say, the haymaker, head butt etc are so rare. The fight goes from zero to pain in the blink of an eye. The whole social, psychological and physical set of conditions are different to adult scenario.

All of which requires anyone who works with kids to do as you do.

My initial point, which Holger has convinced me I am probably wrong about, was that maybe Funakoshi went through the same conversation / revelation you did and changed the Kata accordingly.

Thank you very much for this post. There is so much in it that stands out as great practice. And is obvious by reading it. But there are a few things you imply that I would like to pick up on as well.

1. You have a limited no of students and you dedicate your time and effort to meeting THEIR needs not forcing them into your syllabus.

2. You have fostered an environment where an 11 year old feels s/he can pipe up and 'challenge' the expert.

3. You must have instigated a series of conversations with the students that encouraged you to re-design your syllabus. Not simply done all that work on the basis of one comment.

Yes / No. I teach hundreds of school students a year, but due to time constraints imposed on me the vast majority only get a presentation on the legal aspects of self protection and soft skills (these are usually 6th form age students about to start work or go to university). I teach a much smaller number a microcosm of my syllabus, again based on the one-off time I have with them with a priority on principles rather than specific methods. I teach my full syllabus to a much smaller group of students in two clubs, one secondary school boys only, one a mixed club for adults and mature teenagers. There is usually a fair amount of banter in the classes and I do like to stress that I am there as a coach, not a fighter - it's not about what I can or can't do, it's about what they can do.

My syllabus is based on what I've learned, through physical training, through studying crime statistics and reports/feedback, through the law, through psychology, through pressure testing, through student feedback and so forth. So the syllabus is very research based rather than just 'what my regular students think, and I get to try and assess the content and methodology on a large number of people every year. I don't change things for the sake of change, or hang on to things because I like them. If we ditch something it's because it has consistently not worked so well under pressure in simulations. If we adopt something it has to not only work better in isolation than our existing approach, but also fit holistically with the other drills so that we are not running the risk of a clash. While the syllabus is in an order for a reason, and while we teach what we teach for a reason, you have to tailor what you are doing to the student if there is a good reason why they can't do it. There's no point in drilling a preemptive strike to the head ad infinitum for an adult lady who only comes up to the average man's nipples in height. Does that make sense? I teach in groups rather than lines so that people get time to work on what they and I (hopefully in agreement) feel they need to work on.

mosul wrote:

4. Your syllabus develops in line with their concerns as they get older. Not more technical, just different.

Again, Yes/ No. :)

It's very important to me that the later syllabus is not more technically demanding or difficult than the early syllabus. Everything should be simple, and where possible fit together and overlap. Now obviously for those training in DART as a karate system I expect to see progression the more they train in terms of strength, coordination, speed, flow, balance, accuracy, judgement and so forth, but the syllabus is ordered according to what I think they need to know and drill the most - so the most important stuff is at the start, and the less likely stuff (knife drills for example) is at the end, although the stuff at the end is based on what is learned at the start, so for variety there's no reason why a student can't chop and change. This also means that a senior grade and junior grade can both pair up and do the same drill and each feel they are getting a lot out of it.

mosul wrote:

I would also be interested to know if you had any conversations with staff at the school (I do not know if you are one) about why you had an influx of younger students. Or did you feedback to a member of staff that this had happened and allowed them to find out why suddenly self defence had become an issue for the youngest kids?

I used to teach part time at the school (my background is in university and secondary school teaching) and hold a middle management position in the cadet force based in the school. When I was teaching there and having regular contact with the students I used to get the late teens I worked with joining. When I stopped teaching and switched to being the commanding officer I no longer had regular contact with individuals and as a result fewer boys joined. The influx of young students seems in part linked to colleagues who worked for me being in tutor roles with the youngest boys, and in part due to parental concerns over the amount of violence in the town outside of school, enlisting their boys having seen an advert in the 'new boys' information pack.

mosul wrote:

I am not surprised at all by your list of kids concerns. Having worked for nearly 20 years as a PE teacher in some lively inner city schools. I can tell you that 99% of student 'fights' are not as the papers say but more like this;

'did you see Ronaldo's goal'

'Ronaldo is shit.'

'your mum is shit' (push)

Headlock with an option of punching to the face.

Horseplay that gets out of hand? doesn't matter, the point is that, as you say, the haymaker, head butt etc are so rare. The fight goes from zero to pain in the blink of an eye. The whole social, psychological and physical set of conditions are different to adult scenario.

Agreed. In my experience the age tipping point in the haov that follow the primal posturing performance, both of which will vary from culture to culture and according to the race/ability/class mix, seems to be at about the 14/15 'definitely in puberty' mark.

All very quantam that John, Yes and no at the same time! like it. I take the point; there is more nuance in reality.

Thanks for all posts in connection with this topic. I think I have been able to clear up many aspects of my thinking and hopefully put a few thoughts out there for others.

If people want to teach kids self protection then they should do it like John does above or as James does in his articles. Or as Holger does and don't teach them unless you are going to do it right. Leave the belt factories in the past and give children the same level of thought that adults recieve.